Party of life, my ass:
WHEN REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN John Shimkus expressed outrage during a House committee hearing Wednesday “about men having to purchase prenatal care” in their health insurance — the video clip of which caught fire on social media as an example of misogyny and cluelessness — he wasn’t going rogue. He was just getting ahead of party leaders, who haven’t publicly announced their next steps quite yet.
In a conference call with GOP allies on Thursday, however, House Republican Conference chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers outlined the party’s “three-phase approach” to repealing the Affordable Care Act and suggested that the Essential Benefits Package, a provision of the law with sweeping consumer protections, could soon be on the chopping block. The benefits package, a core provision of the ACA, requires qualifying health insurance plans to cover a set of medical treatments, including pregnancy-related medical care.
The conference call was for other Republican House members and state leaders from the American Legislative Exchange Council, an influential conservative advocacy group that brings lawmakers and lobbyists together to form policy solutions. It was obtained by The Intercept and the Center for Media and Democracy.
***The insurance industry aggressively fought against the required coverage rules. Insurance giants UnitedHealth Group, Anthem Inc., and Aetna have lobbied policymakers for years on the Essential Benefits Package, records show. America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group representing much of the industry, has also bitterly complained about the consumer mandate.
This happened Friday:
America’s second-largest health insurer voiced its support for the ObamaCare repeal and replacement bill proposed by GOP House leaders in a letter to lawmakers this week.
Anthem is urging lawmakers to launch the ObamaCare repeal process “as quickly as possible,” Politico reported Friday.
“[It] addresses the challenges immediately facing the individual market and will ensure more affordable health plan choices for consumers in the short term,” Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish wrote to the chairmen of the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees Thursday, the same day both panels advanced the repeal legislation.
“These provisions are essential and must be finalized quickly to have the intended impact on products and prices to benefit consumers,” he added, citing the bill’s repeal of ObamaCare’s health insurance tax, tax credits for customers off the ObamaCare exchanges and temporarily keeping the law’s cost-sharing subsidies.
Anthem, which is the largest insurer in the ObamaCare exchanges, said it was formulating rates and making decisions for 2018.
It’s all about the benjamins:
Health insurer Anthem Inc. on Wednesday posted a decrease in profits amid a rise in medical costs.
The company said it now expects revenue for 2016 to be about $83.5 billion, compared with its earlier estimate of between $82.5 billion and $83.5 billion. It expects adjusted earnings per share to be about $10.80 per share; it previously forecast earnings of “greater than” $10.80 per share.
Shares of Anthem slid 0.6% to $116.78 in premarket trading.
In the latest quarter, total medical enrollment grew 3.1% from to 39.9 million. Enrollment in its commercial and specialty business increased 2.2% from a year earlier to 30.5 million members, while members in its government business grew 6.2% to 9.4 million.
In all, the company posted a profit of $617.8 million, or $2.30 a share, down from $654.8 million, or $2.43 a share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, earnings fell to $2.45 from $2.73. Revenue climbed 7.5% to $21.4 billion.
A half a billion in profits just ain’t enough, especially when you got mouths to feed:
As Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer at ANTHEM INC, Joseph R. Swedish made $13,604,681 in total compensation. Of this total $1,298,077 was received as a salary, $1,668,678 was received as a bonus, $2,599,957 was received in stock options, $7,800,073 was awarded as stock and $237,896 came from other types of compensation. This information is according to proxy statements filed for the 2015 fiscal year.
Those lazy fucking fetuses should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Mnemosyne
Here in California, Anthem Blue Cross is a known bad actor. They’re constantly being investigated and fined by the state’s Department of Insurance. So, yeah, no shock that a known bad actor would decide that they’re going to make big profits under Trumpcare.
mai naem mobile
I don’t want to pay for John Shimkus’s Viagra,Propecia,STD drugs and Prostate cancer surgery/meds. I’ll along with the manboob cancer stuff because I might get breast cancer.
Kropadope
Men don’t get pregnant, why should they be involved in paying for pregnancies?
Nora
Of COURSE insurance companies don’t want to be told they have to cover certain essential procedures. If they could have their way, they would just collect premiums forever and never have to pay out at all.
JPL
John, I hope the mini vacay was fun.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Revolutions don’t necessarily have to be kind to CEOs, investors and legislators even as they envision a resulting society where capital crimes are no more.
Jeffro
Anthem is my insurer and they’re going to hear from me every day this week, as will my employer
WereBear
The scary thing about Republicans is that they say what is in their heads.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
GOP logic: Cut out prenatal care, and if this results in the baby being born with any problems, criminally charge the woman for not getting prenatal care. You KNOW that’ll be next.
Angrifon
We are the dead.
daveNYC
This makes no sense though. The Republican plan looks to fucking crash the insurance industry. Straight death spiral. Even the world’s shittiest CEO should be able to look at the bill and see both lower revenues and profits in the future.
WereBear
Gosh, yes. If you can’t afford to live, you have no business doing so.
Mnemosyne
Oh, and if you wanted even more proof that “pro-life” assholes don’t give an actual shit about babies and mothers:
In Texas, a state with a soaring maternal and infant death rate, they’re going to fix that right up by making it legal for doctors to withhold knowledge of a fetus’s birth defects from the parents. Because if the parents knew that their fetus had a fatal birth defect that would lead to its painful death shortly after birth, then they might decide to have an abortion to spare the baby that pain, and that is not allowed in Trump’s America.
Jim Parish
I find it interesting that many of the same people who object to male involvement in paying for prenatal care also insist on male involvement in abortion decisions.
Judge Crater
Hey, more competition in the health care industry will fix everything. Fetuses should have to buy their own health care. They’re people too.
CaseyL
I don’t believe reports that the AHCA will fail “because too many GOP’ers won’t support it.” They’ll wind up voting in favor, because they always do. The GOP has Party Discipline – it doesn’t have scruples, ethics, or a conscience, but it does have Party Discipline.
Those “heighten the contradiction” folks who told themselves and everyone else that a Trump victory would be good because it would lead to a revolution were correct – just not the way they probably thought.
We are in a revolution. A Right Wing revolution. All the shit coming out of Congress and the White House is the revolution in progress.
So far, they’re winning.
danielx
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
Never miss an opportunity to punish poor people, especially poor women.
WereBear
That is horrifying and defies all medical ethics.
So… of course they are.
JMG
@CaseyL: You could be right, but I’m not sure. Tom Cotton, “voting for this bill could put the House majority at risk” sure didn’t sound like a supporter this morning.
Baud
OT. Heh.
(Via Reddit)
danielx
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
Actually, your thinking is limited. Try this: cut out prenatal care and if the baby has problems, bring criminal charges against the mother for not getting prenatal care – oh, and use civil forfeiture to seize the mother’s assets, if any. Insurance companies pay out less money, cops get more money, and for-profit corrections companies have, ah, new opportunities. What could be better? Win-win-win!
WereBear
@JMG: We are seeing a lot of posturing and denial of reality because that is what they do.
This pushback is entirely new to them.
Mike J
@Judge Crater:
This is actually the root of the argument against Obamacare.
Trump and Hannity and Limbaugh et al have for years conflated the labor participation rate with the unemployment rate. 40% of Americans don’t work at all! The clear, simple, and wrong answer to healthcare is take it away from that 40% (and don’t forget the lucky duckies who may work but don’t pay taxes), and that will make it cheaper for everyone.
Democrats talk about risk pools and perverse incentives, Republicans talk about how somebody out there (black people) are getting something for nothing and you’re the one stuck paying for it.
sdhays
@WereBear: If it were up to these folks, one of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” would have been “Freedom from knowing stuff that might lead you to decisions we disapprove of”. And after that, you wouldn’t need the other three freedoms…
sdhays
@danielx: And the right people get to feel morally superior about how much they “value life” while destroying at least two. Win-win-win-win!
schrodingers_cat
@JMG: He is building his cred with the brain dead MSM so he can run for President in 2020. He will vote for the repeal in the Senate.
gene108
@WereBear:
And half the country loves them for it.
J R in WV
@danielx:
And, even better, after the incarceration of these failed mothers, they can be transferred to private corrections centers in Nevada where they can be put to good work in high-income jobs, like the good work at the Dovetail Ranch, the World Famous Bunny Ranch Legal Brothal, etc. So they can afford to pay the daily incarceration fees, don’t you know.
Can’t be having prisoners mooching on the public trough, they have to pay their way like everyone else.
So that would be win-win-win-win for the Republican sponsored prison-industrial complex. Everyone wins but the people themselves. The Corp-people always come out on top, and the walking-around people go down on the bottom. Just the way Jesus wants it.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
That’s part of freedom from fear, silly. They’re just protecting people from scary knowledge.
patrick II
I know that as a man I had no investment in the health of my wife or baby during or after pregnancy. It is only when the boy finally went to work and could contribute to the family income that I had a reason to care.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
I think he’s honestly hoping that it will die in the House so he’s not faced with the choice between going along with the party program and depriving a huge chunk of his constituents of healthcare.
danielx
@sdhays:
Hard to assign a dollar value to that last item but when you’re right, you’re right.
lgerard
What irks me is the belief these people constantly advance the idea that the paradise they enjoyed in the 1950’s and 1960’s was ruined by political correctness and government regulation. As I recall there was a widely read book published about them and their paradise in the early 1960’s.
it was called The Other America.
JMG
@schrodingers_cat: Maybe so, but I don’t think he’d say stuff like that if he thought his yes might be the deciding vote in the Senate I took it as a sign he thinks it can’t pass there, and was warning the House not to put Senate Republicans on the spot. He’s said before he thinks it might not even come to a Senate vote.
ruemara
This is why I’ve given up on the idea of a good conservative and decided that top to bottom, they are evil.
debbie
What the Dems need to loudly publicize is how the first thing the GOP always wants to do, regardless of the program, is remove consumer protections. No voter should stand for this. Elizabeth, speak up already!
WereBear
@ruemara: I completely agree with you.
debbie
Buried somewhere within TrumpCare is a provision protecting the bonuses of healthcare CEOs. So, CEO bonuses get more protection than Americans’ lives?
debbie
@WereBear:
I agree also. Republicans never used to be what they are today: Predatory monsters. I don’t get their motive. Who’s going to cut their lawns or skim their pools?
Roger Moore
@debbie:
Rich people get more protection than poor people. Same old, same old.
aimai
@debbie: People’s give a damn is broken. Its not that its not obvious which party brought them the consumer protection bureau–or which senator, for that matter. But the truth is that for many voters these issues lack salience. They don’t understand how the world works, they know just enough to navigate their little slice of it. And as far as they are concerned corporations are closer to them, and have unlimited power, except when they don’t for some reason they know nothing about. They are born patsys, suckers, and pathetic losers and they don’t believe that Democratic governance fixes anything because they don’t think the things Democrats care about can be fixed. Racism? It will always be there. Democrats just lie about wanting to do something about it to get a leg up on hard working white americans. The climate situation? Don’t be ridiculous, human activity can’t affect something that big, and anyone who tells you they are going to do something about it is lying.
These people either don’t think these are issues that matter to them, don’t understand them as issues at all, or don’t believe the democrats are the party to do something about them. You can talk about it until you are blue in the face but you won’t break down their permanent, chosen, state of ignorance and defeatism unless you tie what you want to do directly to demagoguing their lizard brains. Then they will choose you, as they chose trump, but they will have no idea what they are choosing.
sdhays
@debbie: Child labor laws have been holding back the free market for too long.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT – Finished the VERY disturbing “Hitler: A Career on Netflix. Watch it and draw some comparisons.
Needed lighter fare. I’m segueing to “Good Guys Wear Black” (I’m a sucker for martial arts movies, even from a total tool like Chuck Norris). Pornosonic soundtrack, and it has the wretched James Franciscus, so that’s a plus.
This morning, I rewatched “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”, DVRed Friday. Franciscus was awful, they skimped on Ape makeup, Inspector Lugar/Johnny Iselin made no effort to deaden that awful accent and the geography and foliage of New York was completely forgotten in terms of set design and outdoor scenes.
Weaselone
It’s really just the Trump university model applied to health insurance. The goal is to create a policy that doesn’t actually deliver any actuarial benefit, but seems to be a real policy at an affordable price.
WereBear
Reading Libertarians on the Prairie, 23% into it (thank you Kindle) and it really is amazing how, digging down into the actual genesis of the Little House books, Rose Wilder Lane shaped her mother’s frontier reminiscences into something suitable for children which also propagandized them with Ayn Randiness.
There’s a Homestead in my bailiwick (it’s like stations of the Cross, the hardcore fans visit all of them.) I’m looking at the woodstove, the pillows where you get stabbed in the face with the feathers, the lack of indoor plumbing and the absolute weariness on the faces of the women in the portraits, and I’m glad I’m 21st Century.
Some of these people will mill around squeaking about how wonderful it would be to live like that now… and I’m thinking, Well heck, you could. Go ahead. Why don’t you?
These folks absolutely adore the fantasy. Even though they will not actually live it.
WereBear
@debbie: They think there will always be lessers to do that. Their goal is to have lessers.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Oh my – Anne Archer just made an appearance – she was about 30 when it was filmed.
Yummy.
Shakti
Well, there’s even more reasons for me not to touch Republicans with a ten foot pole. They’re all about “family” values and such and don’t want to develop a personality beyond “I have money” and “I have sperm” and they’re full of retrograde nonsense such as “man must be older than woman” and “who cares about your orgasm.” So what would I want with someone who doesn’t even want pay for the care of children he fathers before they’re born or after, has old man sperm and isn’t even pleasant to be around? And you know none of these guys believe in parenting either in the old fashioned sense or the “modern” sense.
Sometimes I fantasize about winning the lottery. In addition to paying off my parents’ mortgage, and taking care of my brother, and various medical issues I’ve been putting off, I would just be forever single. If I had the desire to have a girl (no boys because they’re fragile) I’d go to a sperm bank, adopt or have a surrogate because none of these men are worth shit.
It is such a failure of society that this representative not only isn’t a virgin, he’s married and has reproduced. I mean, I’m sure his mother regrets she chose life every single day.
#todayinmisandry
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: I think Cotton, and Paul, are trying to spook the herd in the House so they won’t have to vote on it.
sdhays
I have to say I don’t get the strategy with TRyancare. Wholesale repeal would be less politically dangerous and would equally accomplish their tax-related goals compared to what they’re proposing with TRyancare. If/when they pass this, they own all the problems in the healthcare system – and there will be serious problems, especially for their constituents. If they just pull the plug on the ACA and go back to 2009, they can at least say that they’ve reset and “are working on” improvements. Not great, but possibly enough to avoid harsh (electoral) consequences (although I doubt that as well).
I’m starting to think that this is all kabuki to let them leave the status quo mostly as-is so that they can continue blaming Democrats for any problems. And the best kabuki has most of the actors involved not knowing that it’s kabuki. They are not going to be punished in 2018 for failing to repeal Obamacare.
Ben Vernia
Why should Anthem do this? Look at the third bullet point in Ryan’s Powerpoint: “Additional Legislation.” Under reconciliation rules, the GOP could only include in the draft AHCA those things that affect the budget – not regulatory changes. So, the other shoe to drop – and it’s a big one, will be to repeal the Medical Loss Ratio (which currently limits insurance companies’ profits), and implement perhaps the worst idea in all of healthcare: interstate insurance sales (a/k/a “the race to the bottom”).
tobie
@CaseyL: I tend to expect the worst, so I won’t be hurt or disappointed, so everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt but my sense is that enough pressure will be brought to bear on GOP dissenters to Trumpcare/Tryancare that they’ll eventually tow the party line. The only question for me is will the consequences of this clusterfuck piece of legislation be felt before the midterms. If so, the GOP could be signing its own death warrant.
sukabi
Insurance PROFITS shouldn’t be guaranteed by government mandate, which is what this “replacement” bill is all about.
Eric S.
@sdhays: I had to go look up FDR’s Four Freedoms. Mr. Ventrilli’s US History class in my Junior year clearly missed this one.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Shakti:
Suffers for lack of creativity. If I win the lottery, I’m buying the debts and mortgages of everybody I hate in order to be The Evil Creditor From Hell, changing payment and notice addresses on a whim, being rigid about accelerations and foreclosure.
I’d be a total dick – it would be glorious…
Ruviana
@WereBear: I’m not sure how successful they were at propagandizing kids or at least me. I loved the Little House books and mostly took from them stories of girls who did things. I can still remember how Ma got Laura’s and Mary’s braid ribbons mixed up and Laura and Mary were so happy about it. I probably skated right over anything that smacked of rugged anti-government ideas as just old pioneer stuff.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @JMG: @Roger Moore: I will believe it when it happens. As of now my policy is to give an elected Republican zero benefit of doubt.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Eric S.:
My US History class was sophomore year. My teacher was a football coach who liked those filmstrips with the record that played, so he could go bullshit with the other coaches (blue collar all male Catholic high school). He’d pull the blinds and turn off the lights.
My desk was back corner, next to a chalkboard on the wall opposite the windows.
I remember nothing about that class – I slept through it every damned day, and had chalk all over the right side of my head when I left.
amk
CaseyL
@tobie: I’m already seeing posts on “progressive” FB how there’s no point in voting for Democrats because they’re too beholden to corporate interests. This strikes me as stupidity to the point of insanity – or maybe the “progressive” movement has been nothing but ratfuckers all along.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WereBear:
My RWNJ mom adored those books. She got pissed off at me about 20 years ago when I remarked unkindly on them as she was prattling on about how wonderful they were and kids these days don’t read them anymore.
My offense? Saying this:
pamelabrown53
Jeebus. After reading these last 2 threads, I’m thinking we should change our name to “Sad Sacks”. In between, I’ve been trying to find a Chicago hotel room (late April) with a river view that costs less than the Palmer House. So far, no luck. Nothing good with airbnb either.
Also, will be visiting my son and d-i-l on March for Science day in St. Louis. Any BJers planning to attend? Spouse and I have tentatively planned to take a cab for an architectural walking tour in the AM, followed by lunch and then march.
Restaurant suggestions always appreciated.
raven
@pamelabrown53: Take the boat tour, it’s awesome.
Eric S.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Mr. Ventrilli was the varsity football coach.
pamelabrown53
@raven: #63.
Thanks. It’s number 1 on my to do list.
raven
@pamelabrown53: Sheraton Grand Chicago?
Eric S.
@raven: THIS! Take the one put on by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@pamelabrown53:
Seconding raven on the boat tour. We overnighted there in October ahead of a trip to Beijing, had a blast. Stayed at the Park Hyatt, did the boat tour, ate at some neat little place called Avec (community seating or bar seating – you aren’t sequestered into just your own atomistic group).
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Eric S.:
That’s the one we took – the guide was great.
Shakti
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Lack of originality or lack of spite?
I actually know at least two or three people for whom that would be the perfect punishment for what they did to a relative of mine. The best part is they are so terrible that I really wouldn’t care about their children or exes because they’re terrible to them too.
They have no idea that only the saving grace of my mother and my attention span has stayed my hand.
bemused
I’m thinking dipshit Shimkus’ mother must have had no/really lousy pre-natal care when pregnant with him considering how he has turned out.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
I keep saying I know these people are evil and immoral, I expect nothing but the worst from them, and yet somehow they keep outdoing themselves, proving to be more evil and feckless than AI thought possible. These people are monsters, depraved monsters, I hope there is a hell waiting for them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@bemused:
I wish she’d have had really awful prenatal/neonatal care, to anlevel which would have deprived us of Shimkus.
bemused
@mai naem mobile:
Not that this would ever happen but I’d love to hear these moron white male legislator’s wives come out and say they resent paying for prostate health care or anything to do with their husband’s peepee.
Ruviana
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Inorite? But further to my earlier point, I didn’t figure out how bad Charles Ingalls was until like two years ago reading here! I was seven and eight, in the late 50s, and just attributed it to the mysterious workings of grownups. Felt sorry for Caroline Ingalls though, who appeared to miss Boston and her previous city life.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT – I’m still watching “Good Guys Wear Black” the airport doesn’t even have a good coffee machine. He had to get vending machine coffee.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Boo – they just killed Anne Archer.
bemused
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Ha, harsh but I understand the sentiment .
max
A half a billion in profits just ain’t enough, especially when you got mouths to feed:
Well, I mean, yeah. Carly Fiorina got paid a couple hundred million for destroying her company and this dude is only in 8 digits!
max
[‘He needs LOOT! Also maybe hang out on TV, run for Congress, pet Trump’s hair.’]
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: The members of the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs have made a solid case for “wrongful births,” their own.
Kathleen
@CaseyL: I would agree with that.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve been muttering all week, how nazi does it have to get before republican voters apoplectic about commie, libtard government trying to run roughshod over their lives and god-given american rights figure out what the WH and GOP fascists are hell bent on doing to them?
Kathleen
@hovercraft: I believe in Karmic law and also believe that inherent in terrible evil is the seed of its own destruction. i didn’t realize that until I saw CincyShakes production of MacBeth several years ago.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuck this shit.
Joseph R. Swedish’s head needs to be placed on a pike.
Mike in DC
Rasmussen 48-52. The most pro-Republican poll. He continues a slow downward drift. The health care Bill will kill him and the rest of the legislative agenda.
Villago Delenda Est
@lgerard: Appalachia: Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
MoxieM
I had the misfortune to be on CA Anthem BC/BS, although I live in MA (long story). Absolutely the worst health insurance I have ever had, hands down. (And, I remember when they invented these new things called HMOs, and my family drove into Boston to participate, because my dad thought it was a revolution in health care, both for his family and the non profit he managed…he died 27 years ago after a long career, so it was a little while ago.) I’ve tried a lot of health plans!)
For one treatment, I had to submit the claim seven (7) times. After the first three, the customer service rep on the phone told me outright they probably just threw it away. After that they just moved the goalposts on what info needed to be included (beyond the submission form, that is. You had to get it over the phone, and take notes). Bunch of thieves. I just got, this week, a claim from Dec 2015 from a rheumatologist I saw then; it was rejected by Anthem. And I had a PPO!
They could not get away with that level of thievery in MA–only sportsball teams do that….
tobie
@CaseyL: Oh Christ on a Cross, have Jill Stein’s supporters still not learned their lesson?
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
I’m not sure there is a carefully thought out strategy. The problem is that they’ve made too many contradictory promises, and they’re afraid of political fallout if they give up any of them. They’ve absolutely sworn that they’re going to repeal Obamacare root and branch, mostly to people who don’t actually know what Obamacare is. At the same time, they’ve promised that nobody is going to lose their coverage and that rich people are going to get a big tax break. There’s no way to keep all those promises, and there’s inherently going to be fighting between people who care more about one promise than another.
Nappy
@pamelabrown53:
Agree on the boat tour
El Caganer
@tobie: Haven’t given them a close reading, but my first take on the positions of the progressive caucus of the Florida Democrats is that they’re actually somewhat to the left of the Green Party of Florida. They sure don’t appear to be any further to the right. Don’t know what that means in terms of Florida politics overall – I’ve only lived here a couple of months.
'Niques
@hovercraft: I told a religious friend just the other day, I would be ok with there being no heaven, but finding there’s no hell would be devastating.
Chris
@daveNYC:
I concluded years ago that the CEOs are just as high on the Fox News Kool-aid as any stereotypical trailer dwelling redneck. All they care about is showing the government and peons that they’re Not The Boss Of Me. Besides, if the health market collapses, they’ll just retire or go find another sector to plague. They’ve got their golden parachutes.
Barbara
As if men play no part in women becoming pregnant or have no interest in the health of their offspring. My husband attended every prenatal appointment.
Re: Anthem. This is an effort to curry political favor to salvage its purchase of Cigna. The problem is that even if the feds bite the states probably will not.
Mnemosyne
@Ruviana:
Yeah, me too. And I definitely got the idea that the Auld Pioneer Days kinda sucked, what with Mary getting blinded by scarlet fever, the frequent near starvation, and mice eating the hair right off your head while you were sleeping.
I preferred Anne of Green Gables, with its nice Canadian collectivism. And in retrospect I’m pretty sure I identified so strongly with her because I had undiagnosed ADHD and, reading the books again, it’s pretty clear she does, too. My non-ADHD friends preferred the Emily series.
Mnemosyne
@pamelabrown53:
Oh, if you want sad, I’ll give you tourist sad: I sprained my knee yesterday, and I leave for Disneyworld tonight for a week-long trip. Beat that! ;-)
Also, as an occasional Chicago tourist myself, make time for tea at the Drake Hotel. Lovely but downtown casual — most guys will feel totally comfortable in a polo shirt and khakis.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Oooh, never thought of reading (or watching) Anne with ADHD in mind, but my memory of both the books and the wonderful CBC series is that it makes a great deal of sense.
Undiagnosed ADHD. I like it.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well-meaning but impulsive and absent-minded? It’s all there. Marilla is able to train some of it out of her, but there’s a reason she has a full-time housekeeper start working for her shortly before she has her first child.
sukabi
@daveNYC: pretty sure you’ve identified the problem…the people who are the CEOs aren’t the brightest bulbs…greediest, most sociopathic yes, it’s how they got their positions. Also short term schemers not long term planners.
Theodore Wirth
You are a hoot John Cole.